Hong Kong Disneyland Breaks Ground for its Third Hotel

January 5, 2015, 12:35 PM ·
Hong Kong Disneyland today celebrated the start of construction for its third on-site hotel with an official groundbreaking ceremony.

The Disney Explorers Lodge will join the Disneyland Hotel and Disney's Hollywood Hotel at the resort, which recently completed a major expansion project, adding Toy Story Playland, Grizzly Gulch, and the Theme Park Insider Award-winning Mystic Manor to the Magic Kingdom-style park.

Concept art courtesy Disney

The new hotel will add another 750 guest rooms to the 1,000 rooms now available between the resort's existing two hotels. The Disney Explorers Lodge will open in 2017. In the meantime, Hong Kong Disneyland is working on a new Iron Man-themed attraction, which is on track to open in 2016.

Replies (5)

January 5, 2015 at 7:38 PM ·
The park looks really beautiful, though on the small side, from the numerous trip reports that I've seen on various sites. The mountains as a background look especially picturesque. I have a question on the park though, namely are their attendance figures legit? Every trip report I've seen shows the park virtually empty of people no matter the time of day or month of year involved on the report.

124.158.193.5

January 6, 2015 at 12:16 AM ·
As a Hong Kong resident, I can tell you that the park is pretty, and the mountains really give it a unique feel. The park is very small however, even after the expansion. But seeing maps, there is a lot of room to grow the park. They seem to have planned for expansion from the start.

I have only been once, but I can tell you it was "dead" the first week of December. Seriously, Mystic Manor was a 5 minute wait.

January 6, 2015 at 7:33 PM ·
**above post was from my phone and it didn't show up until much later**

I think a third hotel will be great! At the moment, I can't imagine there is enough demand for 1000 more rooms, but that's a great sign for me, because it tells me they are anticipating more visitors in the future. Perhaps there are plans for additional expansions after Iron Man that give them this optimism.

I live in Hong Kong, but so far I've only been once. I went in early December, and it was dead. Mystic Manor at 3 in the afternoon was a 5 minute wait, for instance. The park is definitely on the small side, even after the three new land additions. However, looking at drawings and maps, there is still a LOT of room for expansion. To me, it seems clear that they purposely built it in a way to allow for new lands in the future, plus Google Maps makes it look equally as obvious that down the road, there's easily enough space for a sister park. I think its future is bright, and it had better be, because Shanghai will certainly steal a lot of Chinese customers when it opens.

I'm excited to say that the plan is to stay a night at one of the two existing HKDL hotels in late February for my birthday! I am not all that good at writing reviews, but I will post in the Community about my stay, as I posted about my initial trip to the park itself. Stay tuned!

January 6, 2015 at 2:17 PM ·
The park is a quick walk from the train. The train is so quick and efficient. I can't see the advantage of staying on-site since the walk from the hotel to the park is LONGER than the walk from the train station to the park. Nonetheless, I visited the hotel and it seems very nicely done.